Shuttle tension



Jan. 12, 1932. w. A. GRAF 1,840,504

SHUTTLE TENSION Filed March 28, 1931 9 9 U a in INVENTOR, Wizz'am Am Patented Jan. 12, 1932 STATES WILLIAM A. GRAF, OF PATERSON, NEW JERSEY SHUTTLE TENSION Application filed March 28, 193 1. Serial No. 525312.

This invention relates to tension devices of the class embodying a lever formed with a row of eyelets acting as thread guides and cooperative with a row of fixed straight pins also acting as thread guides so that, under the tension of a rubber band or equivalent spring acting on the lever, the two series of guides tend normally to hold the thread in Zig-Zag arrangement.

1@ In order to avoid the thread tracking continually in one spot on each eyelet of the lever it has been proposed toform each such eyelet so that its actual guiding portion shall be straight and parallel with the corresponding fixed pin. It is one object of my invention to accomplish this result, but also to accomplish it so as to sinplify and reduce the cost of manufacture and so as to confine the thread at all sides. i

Usually the rubber band active on the lever has its ends passed through a closed eye or loop on the lever and thereupon knotted so as not to pull back through the eye. It is a very tedious and time-wasting matter to thread the band through this e'ye and knot it. l Vherefore another object of my invention is to construct the lever so as to facilitate the assembling of the rubber band with the lever. y

In the drawings,

Fig. l shows largely in section a shuttle embodying the improved tension device;

Figs. 2 and 3 are opposite side views of the lever;

Figs. t and 5 are end views as seen from the left in Figs. 2 and 3, respectively, with the shuttle bottom shown in section; and

Fig. 6 is an underneath view thereof. The shuttle body l has the usual cavity 2 ;for the tension device, said cavity being open at both sides and having a thread guide 3 leading thereto from the thread-package cavit 4. In cavity 2 is the usual lengthwise series ot' fixed spaced guides 5 in the form of straight upstanding pins. In cavity 2 is also the upright screw or pin 7 forming a pivot or fulcrum for my tension lever,

which is constructed as follows:

It is here a piece of wire or other stili" elongated material bent to form a thread guide arm to coact with the guides 5, a bearing portion and a tension arm. g

The arm is formed by bending one end portion of thewire to the shape of a heliX having a series of turns or volutes formed r so that the major portion 8 of each is a threesided rectangular arch and lies in a plane substantially. perpendicular to the axis of the heliX and the remaining portion 9, which is straight, is oblique to said plane, so that CO the complete turn or volute appears foursided rectangular as seen from the end of the arm (Figs. 4 and 5). Said arm preferably includes a terminal rectangular turn or volute 10 which is also rectangular and lies in a plane substantially perpendicular to the heliX axis but is a. closed loop in the sense that the-free .end of the wire meet-s this turn or loop at'the point of generation thereof, as shown best inFigs. '2 and 3. V

The hearing portion is formed by bending the intermediate part of the wire into a helical coil 11 whose aXis is perpendicular to the heliX axis. 4

The tension arm is formed by bending off the other end portion 12 of the wire into angular relation to the thread guide arm and SO that whereas the arches 8 of the heliX project from one side of the plane occupied by their portions 9 this arm projects from the other side thereof (Figs. 1 and 6) it is also bent to form a terminal loop 13.

The lever is positioned in the shuttle, with its bearing portion penetrated by pivot 7, so that the arches 8 of the heliX may enter between the guides 5 in the pivotal movement of the lever.

The straight cross-bar portions or guides Sa of said arches 8 are in any position of the lever parallel with the guides 5, wherefore when the thread A is engaged with said guides 8@ and 5 as shown in Fig. 1 it is not encouraged to reeve always in the one spot on any one of them but is free to work transversely of itself thus to prevent its forming a a nick in any of them. It is further kept confined in and by the heliX because parts 8 and 9 of each turn or volute completely surround it. Since each volute is rectangular one side T x thereof may bear on the bottom of the shuttle cavity 2 (Figs. 4 and 5) to insure the guides Sa remaining parallel with guides 5, although the coil 11 may not fit pivot 7 snu ly.

T e loop 13 of the tension arm is formed by bending the end of the wire not in a plane but in a helix and so that its tel-minus 14; will be free (or out of contact) and form an entrance 16 to the loop space 15 narrower than such space. The rubber band 17 connected in the usual way illustrated withthe're- Volubly adjustable pin 18 and forming the means for normally holding the lover -re-^ 5 tracted from guides 5, may thus be already knotted and when stretched can be entered laterally of itself into the loop space `15, thus making the forming of the connection be tween the lever and ribber band very easily effected. i v i i `Having thus fully described my invention what I claim is:

lncombination, a shittle body having a cavity and a row of straight parallel spaced guides' in' the cavty, a leVer fulcrumed in the cavity between its ends'on an axis'paral l el with the guides and consisting of a strip of stili' elongated material having one end bent to form a helix each volute of which includes a rectanglar thread guiding arch arranged ina plane `substantially parallel with' and' between two of its guides and with its 'cross-'bar Parallel with the guides and a straight portion obliqueto *said plane and remote ?from the guides relatively to said cross-bars, and said levelhaving *a tension arm; and elas'tic' 'means connected with the tension arm and normally nrging the .lever away from the guides; u i 7 "In testimony whereof I aflix my signature.

I WILLIAM A; GRAF, 

